Academic Informer Inc.

“I'm not sure if this is an amended return. I do not think it is. We have filed this once but it came back to us recently as "returned" with a request to "resubmit" because it was not filed electronically. I apologize if I am doing it wrong again. To explain in more detail (if needed): Our 2021 calendar year form 990EZ was efiled on 4/1/23 (with Intuit ProTax/ProConnect) then mailed on 5/16/22 (after we were informed that our Intuit filing failed). In Sept. '22, we were charged a $3140 late filing penalty, which was paid. Then on 1/3/23 We received a letter with reference #0422862358 stating our 990EZ was returned to us because it was not filed electronically, and that we are under daily penalty until we can refile it properly. After speaking with the IRS representative (1003688052) on 1/4/23, she pointed out that the IRS letter has 2 typos. First, the paragraph explaining what is wrong with our filing was missing from the document so she explained that code 6652 means we need to efile. Also, the date that it says we should have started efiling was off by one year which threw us off a bit. To clarify, we did attempt to efile 6 weeks early. The service we used, Intuit ProConnect, submitted our form and charged a fee but did not complete the process. When we found out our submission did not go through electronically we hastily mailed it last minute, which was 6 hours paste the 5/15/22 filing deadline. We believe the $3140 late fee was unfair given the situation but we paid immediately. Mostly I feel so bad that my students will not have the benefit of that money due to me not understanding this system better. Now we have this new issue of having to file again nearly 9 months later due to having not filed electronically the first time. We are a tiny educational non-profit, we help high school kids who are struggling. We have a full time staff of 1 and 3 part time contractors. I am so sorry about the misfiling. I was just totally unaware of the rules. I certainly did not mean to do anything wrong and have worked with IRS agents by phone for the past 2 weeks to get this submission efiled on 1/23/23 when the IRS opens back up for efiling. It is very difficult for us to know all the rules so I hope this time is right or that I will be notified much sooner if there is a problem to avoid such massive fees that are a massive burden for such a small NPO. I would have refiled back on 1/4/23 when I received your letter but the agents told me that you were closed until 1/23/23. Please consider all of these factors when you assess any penalties. We have filed regularly since starting our service in 2009. We are very small with very small gross receipts an no real staff, just me trying to learn and do exactly what the law requires. The errors in our IRS letter was further confusing, then we could not refile till the IRS winter break was over and you reopen in late January. Plus we have already paid a $3140 fine this year related to the same filing so I ask for leniency in assessing any new fines.”

“Our official name is Academic Informer, Inc. When we received our approval from the IRS, our name had a typo. It showed to be Academic Infromer, Inc. We have requested the correction but it is still wrong. So all of our documents will show Academic Informer, Inc but your records may show Academic Infromer, Inc.”

“We moved from our larger office due to Covid. We sold the main furniture to the new renter. It was a 3x3 table with 4 upholstered chairs, a leather sofa and love seat with matching ottoman, 2 lamps, a 3 stack wooden credenza with shelving, and 6 large wall hangings. The wooden pieces were custom built in 2018 with leather pieces purchased from ZGallery 2017. The total cost was in excess of $23,000 but we figured there would be some depreciation. We had an agreement to sell them for $2500 but ended up actually being able to collect $1500 because the new renters moved out and did not pay.”

“The bulk of this is payments to contract workers who help with managing student issues on a case-by-case basis. Other contractors handle our technology, work related to college applications, and some office work, which they do from their own home.”

“We provide academic advising to families, individual students, homeschoolers, homeschool cooperatives, homeschool associations, junior colleges, universities, and both public and private schools. The majority of our work is providing emergency strategies to the family or guardian of students in 7th grade through College who are struggling and at risk of leaving school (many have recently left their program) and our focus is getting them back into an educational program. A secondary focus is helping student get scholarships for college or for individual college classes so they can minimize college debt or make college an option at all. Our records show that we had 785 unique private interactions with students this year and nearly twice as many interactions with organizations (mostly homeschool groups and junior colleges). The amount of expenditures for each task is very hard to calculate since a single student will often receive multiple services even at the same time. But by far, the bulk of our expenditures goes to the primary task of advising and finding options for students to stay in school and succeed.”

“We have 3 directors. They have each been with the company since founding. Katherine Lee is the CEO. She handles 80% of the day to day issues and is the senior student advisor. She trains all incoming staff. She had deferred any salary or benefits until this year. She was paid $50,000 in 2021. Nien-Chung Lee is a full-time computer engineer for another corporation. He has previously donated enormous amounts of time to our business by developing then maintaining all of our technology. As CFO he has performed the following: developing our web presence, overseeing lecture powerpoint presentations and sound system, PCI billing system, online booking system, CRM, etc. He has been paid minimally in some years when the level of work was extreme. He is previously only working 1-2 hours per week and is not accepting compensation. We sent him $500 worth of Thank You treats this year. Nien has never been involved in the day-to-day running of the business in that he is not involved with students except to fix Zoom when it goes down. Rebecca Edge is our secretary. She has never been intimately involved with the day to day running of the business. She puts in about .5 hours per week just to do basic bookkeeping notes. She is not currently compensated. We sent her $500 worth of Thank You treats this year.”